It's Only Temporary (10 page)

“D
o you remember that Thanksgiving, the time I visited you in Albuquerque?” Gran asked the next Saturday afternoon, steam from her tea misting her glasses as she and Skye watched an old movie on TV. “You were what, eight years old? Nine?”

Skye didn't really remember much about the visit–except for some weird dinners when Gran tried to
“help out”
in the kitchen, almost driving Skye's mom nuts in the process. “Mmm-hmm,” she said, listening to the rain. “That was the year Scott threw the bowl of cranberry sauce on the floor because it wasn't from a can.”

Gran winced a little, newly remembering. “Scotty always was a handful, wasn't he?” she acknowledged reluctantly. “I still have pictures of that trip somewhere,” she added, looking around, as if they might be tucked away
under a nearby sofa cushion. And then she sighed – probably thinking about Scott now, Skye thought. “I remember when you were born, Skye,” Gran said softly. “I was teasing Scotty over the phone, asking if you were a boy or a girl, and he said, ‘It's just a baby, Gran. And I'm gonna help take care of it.' Fierce as could be. And from that moment on, he was always looking out for you.”

Skye nodded politely and sipped her hot chocolate.
“Just a baby.”
She'd seen the pictures, and it was true: she had looked like a red-faced, bleary-eyed blob when she was first born, all wrapped up tight like a burrito, with a little cotton cap jammed down on her wobbly head.

But Scott
had
taken care of her when they were little, Skye remembered suddenly. He'd pulled her around in his Radio Flyer wagon for so many years that someone on another block once asked if there was something wrong with her. “Nope,” Scott said angrily. “But she doesn't have to walk as long as I'm here.” That was one famous family story, among many others.

Scott was her hero, and she had adored him.

But then, as if he was following instructions from an invisible manual called “How to Make Everyone Miserable,” came the impossible years.

Yet their parents had somehow figured Scott would be a good driver?

Why, Skye wondered angrily, had they even allowed Scott to get his license? Was it simply to make their own lives easier? “He'll be able to take you to school,” Skye remembered her mom – exhausted even back then – saying just last March. “And maybe this is exactly the show of confidence he needs.”

Well, Skye thought sadly, he'd shown
them.

And so now, instead of her being a little girl relying on her brother to pull her around the neighborhood in his Radio Flyer wagon, she was a girl whose big brother needed
her.
Or he might, someday.

Skye thought about it almost every night: Was it still “two steps forward, one step back” for Scott, as Ms. Santina once put it?

It was impossible to tell without being in Albuquerque, because Scott never talked much in his e-mails about how his rehab was going. And whenever her mom and dad called Sierra Madre, they were obviously trying to stay “focused on the positive,” as Skye's dad liked to say.

Gran didn't seem to know how Scott was doing, either,
judging by the questions she asked. But then, Skye's mom and dad had always taken pride in not blabbing about their problems – even to family.

But what if Scott stopped moving forward at all? Would she, Skye, have to step in someday and help take care of him?

Skye didn't know how she felt about that. After all, Scott had messed up big-time, while she had always tried to be the
good
kid. So was this going to be her reward?

“Are you cold?” Gran asked Skye, noticing the shiver.

“No, I'm fine,” Skye said. “But what made you think of Thanksgiving, Gran?” she asked, as the still-muted movie resumed, following a string of commercials.

“Oh,” Gran said, smiling. “It's just a little something I've been dreaming up. You'll find out soon enough, my darling.”

13

“H
appy three-days-before-Halloween,” an excited Maddy said as Skye answered the front door. “You look – are you supposed to be, like, a girl ninja warrior?” she asked Skye, looking momentarily confused as she adjusted her kitten ears.

Maddy was wearing a pink plush costume that looked like pajamas, if you didn't count the tail, Skye observed, wishing now that she had time to change. She had chosen a costume that was the closest to invisible that she could come up with: scowly dark eyebrows, skinny black pants, a black shirt buttoned all the way up to her neck, and a fake orchid pinned to her chest. Anyone in Albuquerque or Santa Fe would know who she was supposed to be.

“I'm Georgia O'Keeffe,” she told Maddy, sounding
grouchy. “She was a famous artist who used to live in New Mexico. She always dressed in black.”

“Why?” Maddy asked.

“I don't know,” Skye said, irritated by the question. “Because it was easy, I guess. At least her clothes always matched.”

“Well, you certainly couldn't go trick-or-treating dressed like that, or you'd get run over,” Gran said, bustling into the front hall holding her car keys. “But I guess it's fine for a party. Maddy, you look darling,” she said.

Maddy beamed and fiddled with her fuzzy ears again. “I'm really happy I was invited,” she said. “This is the best thing that has happened to me since forever.”

Skye scowled, still worrying about her costume.

Maddy cocked her head. “You
really
look like a ninja warrior when you make that face, Skye,” she said. “Maybe that's what you should say you are, when we get to Amanda's house, because more people would guess right than if you said you were Georgie Keef.”

“
Jor-ja Oh-Keefe
,” Skye said, trying not to snap, because it was just plain weird for someone like Maddy – not
that Skye meant anything bad by that! – to be so worried and protective about her, Skye McPhee. “Georgia O'Keeffe is extremely well known,” Skye said, softening her tone. “She painted orchids and bones and stuff.”

“Why?” Maddy asked as Gran locked the front door behind them and they made their way toward the Toyota, Maddy's pink tail swishing against the low bushes that lined Gran's front path. “Why did she do that, Skye?”

“I don't know,” Skye said, nearly growling the words. “I really don't want to talk about it.”

“Okay, Skye,” Maddy said, unperturbed – and prepared to have a wonderful evening – as long as there were no green peppers on any of the food.

As it turned out, Pip was the only other kid who'd even tried for an art-related costume. “Who are you supposed to be?” Maddy asked, eyeing his curly blond wig, his polka-dotted dress, his skinny, twirling-up mustache, the cutout picture of a clock drooping over one shoulder, and his bulging chest with thinly disguised alarm.

“I'm two people,” Pip said proudly. “I'm the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, and I'm the country singer Dolly Par-ton. So I'm Salvador Dalí Parton.”

“I think Pip's going to win it for both guts and originality,” Amanda's mother said, setting down a big box of Halloween decorations on the front porch.

“Skye is Georgie Keef, who was a famous Mexican artist who painted bones,” Maddy announced uncertainly.

“
New
Mexican.
New
Mexican,” Skye said, trying to be polite as she said the words. But it was hard not to sound snappish. New Mexico was famous, in New Mexico, anyway, and Albuquerque had a population of over half a million! But no one in Sierra Madre even seemed to know that Albuquerque existed, much less that New Mexico was part of the United States.

Duh.

“Oh,” Mrs. Berrigan said. “Georgia
O'Keeffe.
Very clever, dear. Now, listen, Amanda,” she said over her shoulder as her daughter – masquerading in a drooping tutu and lots of makeup as a bad ballerina, which Skye now wished she'd thought of herself – erupted onto the porch with Jamila and Matteo close behind. “No crepe-paper streamers, because the dew will make them sag by Halloween, which is not until Tuesday,” Mrs. Berrigan told them. “But everything else in here should be fine,” she said, patting the cardboard box she'd been carrying.